How an obscure banking bill becomes a hot issue in Oregon House races

At least three Republican state representatives in the Portland area are getting hammered with Democratic ads accusing them of voting for a bill that would allow banks to grab driver license data to use for marketing purposes.

Rep. Patrick Sheehan, R-Clackamas, says he was mystified when voters in his distrrict were hit with fliers stating: "You wouldn't give a stranger your ID, but Rep. Patrick Sheehan will."

"The entire thing is ridiculous," said Sheehan, who remembers the legislation as a "very pedestrian bill" to make a technical fix to the law. "I don't recall any lobbying or debate on it."

But the fact is, there were concerns raised about the bill in question: House Bill 2615 from the 2011 session. And how the bill morphed from a supposed technical fix to a high-profile campaign issue sheds some light on how even seemingly minor legislative issues can wind up having a big political impact.

The bill was drafted for the Oregon Bankers Association, which had some issues with a 2009 law that restricted when businesses could "swipe" driver's licenses by running them through barcode readers. The practice was coming into use by a wide range of businesses, ranging from bars that wanted a quick way to check the age of patrons to cell-phone providers interested in a customer's credit history.

The bankers said they wanted HB 2615 to make sure they could capture the expiration date of licenses (information included in the barcodes on licenses) to make sure they were still valid.

"This really wasn't a big deal," said Linda Navarro, president of the Oregon Bankers Association. "This had nothing to do with trying to take people's information" for marketing purposes, she added.

But the Oregon branch of the American Civil Liberties Union saw it differently. It warned in a letter to legislators when the bill came to the House floor in April that the bill contained a provision that also allowed financial institutions to retain "swiped" driver license information for "goods and services."

"The banks were essentially trying to carve out an exemption for themselves from the limitations put in place in for everybody in 2009," said David Fidanque, executive director of ACLU of Oregon.

The ACLU letter appeared to have an impact. While the bill passed on the floor without any debate, 20 Democrats and three Republicans voted against it. The bill was sent to the Senate, where it wound up dying in committee.

Fidanque said the ACLU offered to negotiate with the bankers, "but they refused to sit down with us to work on a possible compromise."

Navarro said the banking association simply didn't care enough about the bill to work to revive it.

"This was never one of our highest priorities," she said, adding that the association instead wanted to focus on other issues in the last weeks of the legislative session.

The bill may not have been a big deal in the river of legislation flowing through the Capitol, but it made excellent campaign fodder.

Melissa Unger, who heads Future PAC, the House Democratic campaign fund, said the issue taps into a big concern among voters -- the growing use of personal information for marketing purposes. "That's the point we're trying to make," said Unger, whose group worked on the mail pieces with the Oregon Democratic Party.

Sheehan's opponent, Shemia Fagan, said his support of the bill just "highlights a different sense of priorities" that she believes Sheehan has in the Legislature. She argued that the banking association has a bias toward "how can we get this information and use it for broader purposes."

The Democratic campaign operatives also knew they were feeding public suspicion of banks and other large institutions -- particularly in the wake of the financial meltdown that led to the deep recession.

A Democratic flier attacking Rep. Julie Parrish, R-West Linn," even shows the part of the bill using the word "swipe." Even though that just refers to running a driver's license through a card reader, the mailing says in bold red print:

"Yes, it actually says "swipe." The mailing goes on to say:

"Why do they want it? To use the information for their own marketing purposes. Your personal information rattling around the marketing department of a bank? Certainly nothing could go wrong there. Like identity theft."

Parrish called it the "most egregious mailer yet" this year -- particularly in how it uses the word swipe in its most sinister connotation. By her way of thinking, the bill was simply about helping banks ensure that people aren't trying to use phony ID cards.

Fidanque, the ACLU official, didn't see it that way. "Sounds accurate to me," he chuckled when he heard the wording of the Parrish mailer. It's not always the case that the ACLU's concerns are popular enough to be turned into campaign ads.